


Don't you (forget about me) (bitch)

by rohkeutta



Series: Stop interrupting my grinding [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Modern Bucky Barnes, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Nurse Bucky Barnes, Sass, Sassy Bucky Barnes, Shrunkyclunks, Swearing, Temporary Amnesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 19:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15802623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohkeutta/pseuds/rohkeutta
Summary: ”Did somebody say mojito?” Tony asks as he strolls in, holding a protein smoothie. ”Pep banned me from rum after 11 p.m., but I can arrange some mean Sex on the Beach, if you catch my wind, grab my breeze, hold my balls, whatever.””None of those is an actual figure of speech,” Bucky says at the same time as Sam says, ”I can’t decide if it’s too late or too early for this shit, but it’s still disgusting.””Say the guys holding each other next to one’s sleeping husband,” Tony says, taking a slurp of the smoothie. ”That’s exactly the kind of behavior that screams Mai Tais and illicit hand jobs for breakfast.”





	Don't you (forget about me) (bitch)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Don't you (forget about me) (bitch)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812499) by [belca77777](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belca77777/pseuds/belca77777)



> Bitch bet you thought you'd seen the last of us.
> 
> In celebration of Side bitch nearing 5000 kudos [!!!!!!! [insert Power Rangers theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Wt6XlVob_E)] and the upcoming 2-year anniversary of the series, here's something I got an idea for last year and now wrote to procrastinate on CapBB. A big kiss to my test readers aka Lena, spikeymarshmallows and Meg, and most of all a gigantic thanks to Alby who is the bestest and mightiest beta out there and saved this fic. xx
> 
> Title from [Don't You (Forget About Me)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdqoNKCCt7A) by Simple Minds. Look, more songs I'm ruining for you!

Bucky’s freshly off his shift and rifling through completed paperwork when Natasha turns up at the nurses station and says, “Come on.”

Her hair makes her look like Draco Malfoy’s evil cousin, or maybe Lady Gaga; Bucky can’t decide which would be less terrifying. He’s pretty sure that her eyebrows are bleached. It’s not a very good look on her, but Bucky knows that what Natasha does with her looks or her time is none of his damn business, and he really doesn’t have a fucking death wish.

Bucky raises his eyebrows at her and says pointedly, “Hi, Nat, nice to see you too.”

“We have a situation,” Natasha says brusquely, and something hard and terrified clenches suddenly in Bucky’s stomach, despite knowing rationally that with Natasha, ‘a situation’ can mean anything from ‘I woke up with a craving for bubble tea’ to ‘Steve has ebola’. “Grab your stuff, the car’s out front.”

Bucky does as he’s told and speeds to the locker room to grab his backpack, barely remembering to change out of his orthopedic work sandals. He doesn’t wonder about Natasha’s timing: JARVIS has had his work schedules programmed in everybody’s calendars ever since Tony flew in to ER to fetch Bucky and had to be escorted out with some very firm words about how Bucky was _working_ and therefore couldn’t attend the biannual frisbee golf tournament.

Emergencies are emergencies, and Bucky takes his work seriously. It’s taken him some time to bang into his coworkers’ heads that being married to Captain goddamn America doesn’t mean that he’s suddenly thinking only about liberty or A-grade American Beef instead of his patients. Having Avengers barge in in the middle of his shift, trying to pull him away on miscellaneous more or less Steve-related shit, is fucking poison to his career.

Natasha’s already waiting by the main doors when Bucky emerges, still in his scrubs, his sneakers squeaking obnoxiously against the linoleum floor. She’s dressed in denim overalls and a hot pink sports bra, and there’s a 90s style plastic choker around her neck. Sometimes he wonders if she picks her outfits just to rile him up.

Her shoes, suspiciously, don’t squeak. When Bucky glances down, it turns out that she’s wearing a pair of Hello Kitty UGGs.

At least they match the bra. Bucky still wants to set them on fire.

Natasha’s parked right in front of the doors, and Bucky suppresses an eye roll and a knee-jerk lecture about how actually ill people need the drop off spot. But one can get very far with a car fancy enough and a fuck-this-shit-o’clock attitude, both of which Natasha has, and even the security is too busy ogling the car to yell at her.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on it, boys,” Natasha says, blowing a kiss to the closest security guy, and puts on a pair of pink John Lennon sunglasses even though it’s two o’clock in the morning. Weirdly enough, the glasses tip the scale just a little closer to Malfoy than Lady Gaga.

“Okay,” Bucky says once they get in the car. He pulls off the band keeping his hairdo together and starts braiding just to get something to do with his hands. “What’s up? Other than your 90s fashion Instagram account likes, they must be through the roof with this outfit.”

“We ran into some unexpected obstacles in Atlanta,” Natasha says as she throws the car in gear and zooms out of the hospital yard like she’s being chased by the ghost of Alan Rickman who wants to take house points from her. “Mainly, Thor’s asshole brother.”

Bucky stiffens, his hands stopping mid-braid. Natasha glances at him and the way his fingers are clenched around his hair, and she reaches over and squeezes his knee reassuringly. “Steve’s physically fine, don’t worry.”

“Physically?” Bucky asks, because after a little over a year and a half he’s gotten very well-versed in Superhero Dialect, where ‘he’s fine’ usually just means ‘he’s not dead’. He’s also heard all kinds of fucked up things about Thor’s brother, who brought _aliens_ to New York six years ago.

“Well, he’s got a black eye and a head wound, but they’re probably already healing,” Natasha says and takes some very illegal shortcuts. Luckily it’s very late so the traffic is marginally less awful than it normally would be.

“But?” Steve clearly isn’t actually dying, because if that were the case, Tony would’ve probably sent a helicopter to pick Bucky up instead of the painstaking drive back to the Tower.

“Loki zapped him with something. He’s got amnesia symptoms.”

Bucky grits his teeth. He hates that it’s so hard trying to get a full answer out of Natasha; he hates that their friends are so socially awkward due to their traumatic backgrounds and spy shit; and most of all he hates that his hair tie snaps in half when he tries to finish the braid. His hair is what he fusses with when he’s agitated, and now he can’t even do that. “Meaning?”

“He’s having some trouble remembering that he’s married, or that he’s married to _you,”_ Natasha says, and there is something slightly apologetic in her tone, like she’s suddenly realized that it’s the middle of the night and Bucky’s on edge from his shift. “Thor is looking for Loki to see if we can get it reversed.”

So his husband has a case of space bitch induced amnesia, which likely means that instead of the foot rub and good cuddling Bucky had looked forward to, he’s gonna get a headache. Fucking _great._

Bucky takes some deep, steady breaths through his nose, trying to tamp down the tired urge to just crank the seat down to fully reclined, and weep himself to sleep like Nat and him are starring in a menopausal _Thelma & Louise. _ Steve will be fine. Bucky will be fine. They’ll both be alright, and Bucky is going to body slam Thor’s brother the first chance he gets.

Natasha roots around in her pockets as she swerves wildly onto the expressway, and pulls out a simple black hair tie, offering it to Bucky without looking. It’s the closest thing to a hug Bucky can get at the moment and they both know it, and he accepts it gratefully, takes way too much care to twist it around the end of his braid.

“Is it bad?” he asks eventually.

Natasha considers it for a while. Bucky knows she’s not trying to arrange her words into something placating, but is genuinely contemplating the direness of the situation. She’s not the kind of a person to save someone’s feelings, and Bucky’s not the kind of person to appreciate it.

“It is pretty bad,” Natasha says then, frankly. “We got back about four hours ago, and Steve seemed perfectly all right at first, until Sam told him that you were going to kill him when you found out about the black eye. I’ve seen Steve look dumb as shit before, but he just sat there blinking, asking who ‘Bucky’ was.”

Bucky swallows. “You checked for a concussion?”

“Yeah.” Natasha passes another sports car in the right lane and flips the bird when the driver honks at them. “We assumed he just got knocked around a little, but then he asked me not to bother trying to set him up with the nurses this time. He did manage to remember that he had had a boyfriend at some point, but looks like it’s coming and going.”

They burst out of the tunnel to Manhattan, and after honking aggressively at the taxis for five more minutes, Natasha zooms into the Stark Tower garage. It’s been a little under twenty minutes since they left the hospital, thanks to breaking the speed limit several times and doing some terrifying lane changes.

Bucky’s still trying to come down from the Fast and Furious adrenaline rush as Natasha ushers him into the elevator and asks JARVIS to take them to the infirmary. She pulls off the sunglasses and takes a good, long look at Bucky's face when the doors close. Bucky scowls tiredly back, and Natasha swipes some loose strands of hair behind Bucky’s ear and puts her thumb against the thin skin under his eye like they’re in a superhero version of _The Fault In Our Stars._

Bucky really has to stop making movie comparisons.

“We’ll figure this out,” she says, dead serious. “But before that, I will kick his ass if he acts like a dick to you. Just say the word, Barnes, and it’s done.”

“Thanks, Nat,” Bucky says. She’s always been primarily Steve’s friend and it took her some time to warm up to Bucky, but they’ve built something that works for them around the things they both like: movies with the majority of their screen time devoted to dancing, Ethiopian food, funky hairdos, and being terrifying to people who annoy them. Still, it’s reassuring to sometimes get explicit proof that she cares, even if it involves potential violence.

Natasha slips an arm around his waist and squeezes, unfazed by the fact that he’s been on shift in the same scrubs for ten hours, and there’s someone’s blood on his thigh.

When they get into Steve’s hospital room, Sam’s already there, sitting next to the bed and looking mildly exasperated. Steve’s awake, with a nasty but already half-healed black eye, a split lip that's almost visibly knitting itself closed, and some gauze wrapped around his head. His eyes widen to the size of saucers when Bucky and Natasha enter, and he looks at Bucky from head to toe, amazement written all over his face. His mouth is hanging open a little, and Bucky feels more than a bit smug that he can have that effect even after a long shift.

“Sam,” Steve whispers loudly, not taking his eyes off Bucky, “do you see that nurse?”

“Yes,” Sam says patiently and rolls his eyes in Nat and Bucky’s direction, not bothering concealing it. “That’s Bucky.”

“He’s really hot,” Steve whispers. “Tell Nat I take it back, she can set me up with _this_ nurse anytime. Do you think he would give me his number?”

“You already have my number,” Bucky says, crossing his arms over his chest. “What the fuck is going on here?”

Steve perks up at the prospect of having Bucky’s number, but then he glances down at his own hands and his expression turns forlorn. “Sam,” he says, wiggling the fingers of his left hand, “why didn’t you tell me I’m married? I can’t ask Bucky out if I’m married.”

He’s just concussed enough to still be a little loopy, but it satisfies Bucky anyway to know that even if Steve can’t remember him, he’s still very, very interested.

“Bucky is your goddamn husband,” Sam says, exasperated. “You got married two months ago and went to Barbados for your honeymoon. I have photos. No, scratch that, I have photos of _Bucky's ass in booty shorts,_ because you sent me those. I’m pretty sure you did it on purpose, you smug bastard.”

Steve widens his eyes. “I would never.”

Yeah, no, Steve’s clearly in full health if he’s being a shit.

Bucky reads through the clipboard at the foot of Steve’s bed, tuning out the bickering. They’ve done a head exam and scanned for any internal injuries, but like Nat said, the only damage Steve’s taken is some punches to the face and a surprise selective amnesia.

Jesus fucking Christ. Why, instead of Bucky, couldn’t Steve conveniently forget some of his less endearing habits, like leaving dirty dishes in the sink instead of loading the dishwasher, or snoring, or getting crusty splotches on pillowcases because he wipes his eyes on them when he’s reading something that makes him emotional.

By the time he looks up, Steve’s out cold again, and Sam is rubbing his eyes, looking tired.

“Hey,” Sam says and gets up to give Bucky a hug. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like somebody should make me a mojito,” Bucky mumbles against Sam’s shoulder. “Do you think it’s permanent?”

“I don’t know,” Sam sighs. “Thor said it could wear off, but he wasn’t sure. Hard to say when it’s goddamn magic we’re talking about.”

”Did somebody say mojito?” Tony asks as he strolls in, holding a protein smoothie. ”Pep banned me from rum after 11 p.m., but I can arrange some mean Sex on the Beach, if you catch my wind, grab my breeze, hold my balls, whatever.”

”None of those is an actual figure of speech,” Bucky says at the same time as Sam says, ”I can’t decide if it’s too late or too early for this shit, but it’s still disgusting.”

”Say the guys holding each other next to one’s sleeping husband,” Tony says, taking a slurp of the smoothie. ”That’s exactly the kind of behavior that screams Mai Tais and illicit hand jobs for breakfast.”

”Get a haircut, Tony,” Bucky says, but sits gratefully down in the chair Tony rolls out for him.

”And get a new job?” Tony asks as he takes a seat on the other side of the bed. ”Promise I’ll do that tomorrow, I’ve been eyeing a fishing company that looks like fun and has its books in order.” He makes shooing gestures at Sam. ”Go get some sleep, Samuel, I’ll keep Medic Madonna and his boy toy company.”

”I hope that ’boy toy’ means Steve and not Natasha,” Sam says, yawning. He must be tired if he failed to notice when Natasha slipped out, murmuring about being back later. ”Wake me up when they discharge him.”

”Will do,” Tony promises. ”Now jet, it’s sleepy time for little birds.”

”This little bird will strangle you if you keep that up,” Sam threatens, but pats Bucky on the shoulder and shuffles out, looking dead on his feet.

The silence lasts approximately fifteen seconds.

Then Tony says, ”You know, I was kidding about the rum.”

”I know,” Bucky says. ”Pepper told me it’s actually Mountain Dew. That shit is bad for your teeth.”

”But so good,” Tony laments, turning the smoothie shaker in his hands. ”I should probably invent a healthy Mountain Dew.”

”That’s just water and food coloring,” Bucky says, leaning back and propping his ankles on Sam’s vacant chair. His feet are _really_ sore. Damn Steve and the lack of a foot rub.

There’s another ten seconds of silence, filled with Steve’s stuffy exhales and the low beeping from the machines.

”Do you really want a mojito?”

Bucky looks at the clock, then at Steve and his healing black eye. There’s a hitched sniffle in Steve’s breathing that means he’s gonna start snoring soon.

”You know what,” Bucky says, ”I think I do.”

*

The doctors release Steve a few hours later, and Sam ushers him and Bucky upstairs to their floor, sends Bucky to shower and change out of the scrubs, and sits Steve down on the couch. As he leaves the room, Bucky hears Sam say, “Look, just calm your tits for a minute, and I’ll give you a Bucky 101.”

He’s kind of curious to know what it includes, but then thinks of the long shift he just took, and yeah, no. He has actual priorities.

Bucky nearly falls asleep in the shower, but manages to scrub himself clean and dig out a pair of Steve’s sweatpants and a tank top from the dresser. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, slaps himself sharply on the cheek and mutters, “Come on, Barnes, you once survived a three-day rave without a wink, you can do this.”

He most definitely wasn’t thirty-three and working full time back then, but it’s the thought that counts.

“Okay,” Sam says when Bucky returns to the living room and heads directly to the kitchen area. Sweet, sweet, _sweet_ coffee, preferably as an IV drip. “Battle plan. Steve, you’re benched from any missions until Thor finds Loki. It might be better for you to stay in the Tower tonight so that we can keep an eye on you. After that you should probably go home with Bucky, the familiarity might help.”

Steve’s clearly gotten a little out of his own head with more sleep, because he looks more alert and less like he’s gonna make moony eyes at Bucky for the rest of the day.

“So can I, like, go out?” Steve asks from the couch, staring down at his feet, contemplating the Hulk slippers Tony gave him for the trek from the infirmary. “Or am I under house arrest?”

Steve's frowning, and Bucky busies himself with the coffee maker so that he doesn't have to face Steve's stupid, well-loved everything and see the lack of recognition and usual fondness.

Jesus Christ, Bucky’s gonna need another stiff drink and three tubs of fro-yo to make it through today. It’s barely 8 a.m., but he’s been awake for nearly 21 hours, ten of which were on shift, and he’s running on his last reserve.

“Hell, man, you're an adult,” Sam says, shrugging, his hands raised up placatingly. “You can do anything you want. Except two things, that's where the line goes.”

“What are those?” Steve asks with a healthy dose of suspicion. Bucky thinks he probably expects things like ‘go out and fight Nazis’ and ‘fuck off to Patagonia’.

“Well,” Sam says, lifting his index finger, “firstly, you can't start liking root beer. That's my hard limit. If you want to smell like Midwest, take it to somebody else's house.”

“This is my house,” Steve points out, which applies only because they’re currently on Steve and Bucky’s floor instead of one of the common floors.

“Technically it’s Tony’s,” Sam reminds him. “Secondly.” He crosses his arms across his chest and gets suddenly very intense and very serious, looming over Steve as menacingly as he can. “If you even think about taking off that wedding ring or cheating on Bucky, I’m gonna put you back into the freezer and leave you there. He doesn't deserve this shit.”

Bucky _loves_ Sam.

Steve’s eyebrows shoot up and he turns to look at Bucky, who flips his braid over his shoulder, squares his jaw and looks back, trying his best to give out a vibe that says, _don’t fuck with me, I know fifty ways to make your body disappear_.

If he also tries to give out a vibe that says, _I take dick very well and you know it,_ it’s nobody else’s business but his.

One of the vibes must be working, though, because Steve’s eyes go a little unfocused, and then he clears his throat. “That doesn’t sound like something I would do,” he says.

“No, it doesn’t,” Sam agrees. “You’re fucking smitten with Bucky, but who knows what that greasy son of a bitch did to your head. So you better think long and hard about that.”

“Okay,” Steve says, starts thinking, and ends up falling asleep on the couch.

Bucky takes that as his cue to send Sam for breakfast, and go the fuck to bed.

*

The next week is the hardest of Bucky’s life, and he had to wait to see the second season of Stranger Things for a _month,_ dodging spoilers left and right.

He’s used to Steve’s long absences when a mission stretches out, but after barely a day he has to admit that it’s a lot easier to handle worrying about Steve when he’s away than stand the awkward stranger in their house. At least an overseas mission usually means that Steve will call whenever he can, and Bucky can have an actual conversation with him.

It doesn’t help that Steve’s memory of him comes and goes, like they’re living in some amnesiac Groundhog Day: one day he might remember pretty well why he’s living with Bucky - and the next Bucky’s waking up to a rolling pin above him and a wild-eyed Steve demanding to know who the hell he is and why he’s sleeping in Steve’s bed.

Bucky didn’t even know they _owned_ a rolling pin.

The magic doesn’t seem to wear off with time, and with every passing day they all get increasingly worried about the situation. Bucky handles it by compartmentalizing way too much, focusing on the things he can control: it’s a lot easier to just push his growing upset aside and handle the stress symptoms than admit that he’s going absolutely nuts with worry.

Unfortunately, Bucky’s been scheduled for several double shifts that week, and due to summer holidays, taking personal time off with short notice is impossible. So he makes sure that Steve’s got people to take care of him, and does his job, anxiety gnawing under his skin.

Tony is busy with trying to locate both Thor and Loki, but Sam, Nat and Clint appoint themselves as Steve’s sitters: since the amnesia is only affecting his memories of Bucky, they hang out at Steve and Bucky’s place a lot, or whisk Steve away for training and some fun. Steve comes back from the outings a lot more relaxed, and it’s one worry off Bucky’s shoulders to know that Steve’s fine even though Bucky’s not around much.

He’s fairly sure there are things their friends keep from him, but it’s nice to play oblivious for a bit.

It’s terrifying how quickly he turns into his own worst nightmare: a slob. He goes to work, comes home from work, sleeps in two-hour stints, and deftly develops a chronic stress headache and a habit of keeping their wedding photo under his pillow, so that he can pull it out and show it to Steve without getting bashed in the solar plexus when the rolling pin makes an appearance. He eats when he remembers, too occupied with both work and his own brain, and starts forgetting to properly hydrate and to _brush his hair._ Even his coworkers start throwing worrying glances at him after his hair has been in the same topknot for two whole days.

He tries to not give their friends more things to worry about, but still he overhears Sam and Nat murmur about his abrupt weight loss more than once, and keeps finding smoothies in the fridge, his name written on the shaker. Whenever he chugs one down on the way to work, he can almost see Sam’s hopeful, encouraging grin, and has to knuckle off some tears.

*

Bucky tries to maintain the normalcy in their life as much as possible: making shopping lists for Steve to take care of, digging out the laundry instructions for his scrubs so that Steve doesn’t accidentally run them with other clothes if he’s forgotten, and leaving silly post-it notes with funny remarks on the bathroom mirror even though the lack of response feels way worse than he ever imagined.

He even tries to Make America Frisky Again: five days after the memory loss Bucky wriggles into a tank top and his most showy leggings, settling down on their bed in a suggestive pose and flipping a book open. They’re both having a fairly good day: Bucky slept nearly five hours, and Steve's memory is a lot better. Maybe the magic _is_ fading, after all.

Besides, Bucky’s ass _has_ been called unforgettable. Who knows, maybe it’ll manage to fully kickstart Steve’s memory.

Steve’s out on a run, about to come back soon, and Bucky has a night shift and is determined to get laid before it. The book turns out to be surprisingly interesting, and he's read several pages when the front door goes and Steve calls, “I'm home!”

“Hi hon,” Bucky calls back and hurries to arrange his limbs in a way that makes his ass look even perkier than it is.

Steve's steps echo through the house as he goes to the kitchen to grab a glass of water and then heads for the bedroom.

“Bucky?” Steve says as he opens the door, and then there's a long, stunned silence.

“Hey,” Bucky says, abandoning the book and stretching a little on the bed. Steve's wide eyes track the movement, and he swallows audibly. “How was your run?”

Steve opens his mouth but nothing comes out. He opens and closes it a couple of times like a sweaty fish, speechless. Bucky _knows_ the shimmery green mermaid leggings make his legs look incredible and compliment his complexion perfectly, but it's nice to see Steve struggle with words.

“Fine,” Steve squeaks finally. “It was fine.”

Bucky rolls onto his back, leaning to his elbows, and Steve makes a noise like someone stepped on a rubber mouse.

It’s a _delightful_ sound.

“Wanna join me in the shower?” Bucky practically purrs, canting his hips subtly up, and Steve’s eyes nearly bug out. He looks like his brain had been fried. Ass on the menu; system error.

“I can’t!” Steve blurts out, and Bucky’s face falls.

“What?” he demands. “Why? Your boner is practically poking me in the fucking eye.”

“It would be, um, kind of like cheating,” Steve says. “On, uh, you. Since I’m, you know, not fully me and you’re… not… fully…” He trails off awkwardly.

“Fully what?” Bucky asks, borderline desperate and ashamed about it. The rejection feels like a slap even though in theory he does understand what Steve is poorly trying to communicate. “Myself?” He rolls up to sitting, shaking his hair down, and hopes Steve doesn’t pay attention to how thin his face has started to look. His usually excellent self-confidence has taken a dent from the decline of his appearance. “Is it the eyebags? Or the weight loss?”

“No!” Steve nearly shouts, panicked. “No, you look amazing! But I-- I-- I gotta, um, go, Nat’s, uh, taking me to Botanical Gardens. Flowers to sniff, plants to see, trees to admire, gotta run!”

He does a dorky little wave, and shoots out of the door like all hell’s on his heels. The front door slams three seconds later.

“Flowers,” Bucky repeats into the silence, astonished, “to sniff?” Then the situation fully sinks in, and he fumbles for his phone, blinking rapidly.

It takes Sam a year to answer, but when he picks up, he sounds worried. “Hey Bucky, what’s up?”

“Sam,” Bucky gets out, and promptly bursts into tears.

“I’m on my way,” Sam, the actual angel, promises immediately. “I’ll bring ice cream.”

“Raspberry, and mint chocolate chip,” Bucky says, trying to wipe his eyes, and kicks his fucking book on the floor. Fat lot of good it was. “And something for you, if you want any.”

There’s a heavy pause, and then Sam says, “I’ll get three tubs. Put Netflix on, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”  


* * *

  
Sam is going to hell.

He's sitting on Steve and Bucky's couch, fumbling with the remote with one hand to pause Netflix and rubbing Bucky’s shoulder consolingly with the other. Bucky called him an hour earlier, and since Sam arrived 40 minutes ago, Bucky has eaten two tubs of ice cream and alternated between crying and cold murder the whole time. That's perfectly fine, even encouraged; he's under a lot of stress due to the situation, starting to look a little bony instead of just athletic type of slim, and Sam would never say no to some ice cream and watching baby octopi on Blue Planet.

Bucky sniffles next to him, curled up and red-nosed, and says for the eleventh time in a breaking voice, “He doesn't even want to _fuck_ me, Sam. He doesn't love me anymore.”

”I’m sure he does,” Sam tries, hoping his voice doesn’t sound strained.

The thing is that Sam is a lot less straight than most people assume - he _did_ sleep with two of Bucky's friends after the wedding and it was _awesome,_ thank you very much - and Bucky is wearing nothing but a black tank top and a pair of shimmery green leggings with a scale print, his feet bare and vulnerable where they're tucked under him.

Bucky has _really_ nice legs.

So yeah, Sam is going to hell, because not only is he cradling his best friend's sniffling husband under his arm, he's also trying and failing not to notice how nice said husband looks in mermaid leggings.

Steve is fucking missing out.  


* * *

  
When Bucky’s phone starts ringing on the kitchen counter, he’s been awake barely for an hour and keeping busy constructing doomsday scenarios. He’s still feeling a little off kilter since yesterday’s fiasco when Sam had to come over and comfort him, and on the way home from the hospital he had planned on conking out for twelve hours, ordering takeout, and maybe even going to the gym.

 _That_ plan had crashed and burned barely three hours after he went to sleep, thanks to wild-eyed Steve, the rolling pin, and the whole damn third degree interrogation all over again.

He doesn’t know what’s gonna happen if the situation never gets solved - what is Steve going to do for the rest of his life, if he stays benched? What is the whole team gonna do? In the worst case scenario Steve never gets his full memory back, returns to active duty, and they all just somehow learn to live with it.

Bucky promised to be with him in sickness and health, but he doesn’t know how long he’ll be able to handle this. Still the thought of living _without_ Steve is utterly fucking _unbearable,_ so there's his Catch-22.

“Mom,” Bucky mumbles in the phone as he picks up and tries to stifle a yawn. It took almost thirty minutes to talk Steve down from the defensive mode, and by then it was already light out and Bucky was too wired to fall back asleep, so he texted Sam and got up. He’s been standing in the kitchen in his dressing gown and boxer briefs for fifteen minutes, staring at the coffee maker and contemplating bursting dramatically into tears and checking into a spa hotel for the next month.

“Hi baby,” Mom says. Bucky wants to kill her just for having that much energy, not to mention _calling_ someone at the asscrack of dawn. “Just wanted to call to see how you’re doing, Sam told us that it’s been rough going.”

Of course Sam’s calling Bucky’s parents. He doesn’t know why he’s so surprised.

“We're still alive,” Bucky says, rubbing his face with his sleeve to keep out the stinging in his eyes. “Barely.”

Mom makes a sympathetic noise, and Bucky leans his back against the counter, glad that Steve’s in the living room and not witnessing his minor breakdown. “I haven’t slept a full six hours in days, Mom,” he says, trying to keep his voice low. “You could build a fucking _house_ on the bags under my eyes. Steve keeps watching documentaries about Winston Churchill and waking me up with a rolling pin over my head, and my hair is losing its shine because I’ve lost almost six pounds and look like Jack Skellington. I’ve never felt so fucking awful in my whole life, and that includes Dad’s Keith Urban phase. I don't know what to do if this is permanent.”

“Oh, darling,” Mom says, soft and tender, her voice brimming with sympathy. “My poor baby boy. It sounds like you need some TLC with mac & cheese and a box of wine. Want me to fly out to run the house for a while?”

Bucky wants nothing more than to have his mom wreck their apartment with her terrible housekeeping and readily given hugs. “No, it’s okay,” he sighs instead, pushing himself off the counter to go look for some socks, because his circulation has gotten fucking awful with the quick weight loss. “I’ll manage, and I don’t want you to get hurt if something happens.”

Steve glances up from the couch when Bucky steps into the living room, but turns back to the documentary he’s got on. Fucking Winston Churchill. Bucky wants to shoot the damn TV with a bazooka.

“If you say so,” Mom murmurs. “I’m worried about you. We all are.”

“I’ll manage,” Bucky repeats as he goes to the bedroom and pulls out the first socks he finds. Thankfully they’re at least his. “I managed the damn stadium country phase too, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” Mom says, and then falls quiet, just long enough for Bucky to tug the socks on and head back to the kitchen.

“Put Steve on the line, will you, honey,” Mom says then, suddenly, and something cold curls in Bucky’s belly.

“Um,” he says, halting, glancing up to check on Steve, who looks suspiciously interested in the TV and is clearly pretending that he’s not eavesdropping. “I don’t think it’s a good idea right now.”

“What do you mean?” Mom asks, starting to get back her fighting spirit. “Does he have your dick in his mouth?”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t be talking to you if he had,” Bucky hisses. “He’s having a bad day and doesn’t remember me.”

“Bucky, give the phone to Steve,” Mom says, and there’s steel in her voice. “Put the speaker on.”

Bucky grimaces, but does as he’s told, holds out his phone and says to Steve, “My mom wants to talk to you. The speaker is on.”

Steve blinks up at him, looking doubtful, but grabs the phone. “Yes, ma’am?”

“Listen,” Bucky’s mom says. “I know you didn’t do a shit wrong and that this is all the fault of some alien bitch, and I love you, but if you hurt my boy, I’m gonna take you to the space center in Florida and shoot you into the sun.”

 _“Mom,”_ Bucky says, half-torn between mad and mortified.

Steve blinks a little. “Um,” he says.

“You might not remember him at the moment, but this is fucking hard for him too, so don’t go acting like he’s someone who broke into your house and is plotting to murder you in your sleep. He’s your _husband,_ and has to deal with a lot to handle this situation _._ Try giving him some motherfucking compassion, sweetie.”

“Um,” Steve says again, glancing up at Bucky. Bucky’s pretty sure that his cheeks are redder than Steve’s shield, and he looks resolutely away. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good,” Mom says, suddenly sounding cheerful again. “Now go suck some dick and be happy. It’d be like your first time all over again, isn’t that nice?”

When Steve hangs up, only a long, awkward silence remains. Bucky reaches out, still looking at the lonely nail on the wall where their wedding photo usually hangs, expecting Steve to give him his phone back.

“Your mom is a character,” Steve says finally, clearing his throat, and puts the phone in Bucky’s hand.

“She's fucking nuts, that's what she is,” Bucky mutters.

“I'm sorry,” Steve says. “About the, uh, the rolling pin.”

“You're not forgiven unless you turn that fucking Churchill documentary off,” Bucky says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You've seen it already. Twice.”

Surprisingly, Steve obeys without hesitation, turning the TV off and looking earnestly at Bucky.

Getting yelled at by Bucky's mom works fucking _miracles._

“Do you, erm, want a head rub?” Steve asks. “As an apology? Nat says I give mean ones.”

Bucky knows that, and he _does_ have a headache, throbbing at the back of his skull. A Steve head rub sounds fucking _heavenly._ “Yeah,” he says, because he's tired of being noble and wants to exploit Steve's good mood. “Yeah, I do.”

He falls asleep with his head in Steve's lap and his face smushed against Steve's thigh, and wakes up over an hour later, when Sam lets himself in, prepared to lure Steve out for the day.

“Huh,” Sam says, surprised, when he comes to the living room and sees them on the couch. “What happened here?”

“Mrs Barnes called,” Steve says, and resumes carding his fingers through Bucky's hair.

“Ah,” Sam says, sounding satisfied. “Perfect.”

He gets himself coffee and sits in the armchair like he's gonna stay, angling it towards the muted TV where Steve's put a baseball match on.

Bucky lets them be and goes back to sleep.

*

Later that day he’s de-stressing by shopping face masks in Manhattan, when Sam calls him to tell that Thor’s found Loki.

“Fucking finally,” Bucky says, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder so that he can compare two products and keep the line open. He’s a frequent Innisfree customer, but they have a brand new build-your-own-face-mask bar, and he’s been at it for fifteen blessed minutes, torn between the options. “Where are they? I’ve got a couple of heavy words to have with that squirrelly little toad. And maybe a swift kick in the nuts to boot.”

“Um,” Sam says. The line whistles a little, indicating he’s up in the air. “They’re, uh, fighting in front of the Barnes & Noble at Union Square. Have been for almost ten minutes.”

 _“What,”_ Bucky says loudly, and as he turns to look out of the window, Iron Man whooshes past the shop, barely above the traffic. “If they wreck the best free toilet in town, I’m gonna fucking kill them both.”

“Trust me, I’ll be joining you,” Sam says. “I gotta go, we’ve assembled the team and we’re going in, Steve’s with us. Stay out of there.”

“Too late,” Bucky says threateningly as he abandons the face mask bar, slaps just his regular sheet masks on the counter, and digs his card out. He’s already had his breakdown today, and he’s fucking down to _fight._ “I’m at Innisfree around the corner, and I’m gonna pay for my fucking face masks, and then I’m gonna go down there and kick Loki’s ass to fucking _Pluto.”_

“Pluto did _nothing_ to deserve him, it’s not even a planet,” Sam complains.

“Viva la Pluto,” Bucky says, and hangs up on him.

The cashier is luckily a true New Yorker and not even a bit disturbed by the commotion outside, and she gives him some free samples and packs his face masks in a very nice little paper bag. It fits in Bucky’s purse _perfectly -_ it’s his ‘I’m mad about shit and need a new sheet mask’ purse, because it’s just the right size to hold his wallet, keys, chapstick, and up to five face masks. And it sparkles. Besides, Bucky hasn’t gotten to build an outfit around this purse in _weeks,_ and he’s extremely pleased with how he’s looking.

There’s a crowd gathered at the northwest corner of Union Square, phones up to film the park. A big, menacing storm cloud is hanging low over the square - Bucky’s not sure if it’s Loki’s or Thor’s doing, but Sam is circling above it, clearly not able to get under it to help Thor. There’s a flurry of activity a little further away, likely Thor and Loki, but Bucky’s pleased to see that at least the nearby bookshop is intact.

Bucky pushes some people out of the way, not caring that he disturbs at least seven Instagram live feeds. Thor’s fancy hammer is lying in the middle of the street, a car with its front bumper caved in next to it, and because there aren’t any other possible weapons in sight, Bucky grabs the loop at the end of the handle.

He’s bracing himself for lifting the assumed equivalent of a 35 lbs kettlebell, but the hammer swings up in his hand like it weighs nothing, making him sway at the sudden change in his balance. Huh. It always looks light in Thor’s hands, sure, but Thor is a goddamn _god_ and could probably bench press his whole team, with Tony wearing the Iron Man suit and Bruce fully hulked out.

There’s a collective gasp in the liveblogging audience, but Bucky doesn’t pay it any attention. If those fuckers want to die while getting hearts on Instagram, it’s their problem. The driver of the broken car is staring at him through the windshield, dumbfounded, and Bucky shrugs, grips the handle tighter, and starts striding towards the cloud.

If he cards a hand through his bangs and flips his braid over his shoulder to draw attention to how fucking nice his figure looks in the cream-colored silk shirt and black skinny jeans, it’s nobody’s business but his.

“Barnes,” Tony says as he lands ten feet in front of him, faceplate clicking open, his hand extended in the universal sign of _stop,_ “you should stay back, it’s not sa--”

“Out of my fucking way,” Bucky interrupts and shakes the hammer in Tony’s face. “I haven’t had a meaningful conversation with my damn husband in a week, and I’d like to have some words with that greasy Addams family reject.”

Tony opens his mouth, takes one look at Thor’s hammer, and closes it again, looking stunned. “Sure,” he manages, bewildered, stepping to the side. “Uhh, go ahead.”

“That’s what I thought,” Bucky says and breezes past. Steve’s crouching with one hand and a knee on the ground in front of Barnes and Noble, breathing heavily like after a sucker punch, and his eyes go wide with surprise and distress when Bucky stops next to him.

“Get out, Bucky,” Steve says, alarmed. “It’s not safe for you.”

“Shut the fuck up and hold my purse, honey,” Bucky says, thrusting the purse against his chest. When Steve automatically takes it, Bucky puts his newly free hand on Steve’s slightly sweaty face and leans down to peck him on the mouth. “I’m gonna kick Loki’s ass, and you’re not gonna stop me. Save your energy, because once he’s reversed whatever he did to you, I’m gonna ride your dick into next week.”

Steve’s eyes go dark and appreciative and he mercifully shuts his trap, so Bucky kisses him again and turns to go.

“Wait, is that _Mjolnir?”_ Steve asks faintly as Bucky’s already strolling away, his hips swaying maybe a little more than necessary.

Thor and Loki are fighting under the storm cloud in the middle of the street at the corner of 17th Street and Union Square East, and Bucky stalls, assessing the situation, flipping the hammer in his hand. Loki’s doing a weird teleporting thing where he stays just out of Thor’s hands, sending nasty little balls of light to try to knock Thor out, but there is a pattern to how he’s doing it. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds for Bucky to work out where he should head to catch him by surprise.

It’s nice to finally have some other use for advanced math classes than just working out paracetamol dosage.

“Loki!” Thor yells, and a couple of errant lightning bolts strike the ground, nearly hitting a tourist who’s filming everything on an old school handheld video camera. It’s gonna make one hell of a home video. “Stop this, all you need to do is return the Captain to how he was, and you can go.”

Bucky does a quick calculation based on the number of jumps Loki’s done already, and carefully rounds the storm cloud to the side, lifting the hammer like a baseball bat. “Come on,” he murmurs. “I have something for you.”

“Don’t think I will,” Loki calls back at Thor in a sing-song voice. “Where’s the fun in that?” He teleports again, but Bucky’s A in math pays off, and Loki lands right next to him, back towards Bucky, wholly concentrated on Thor.

“Hey, bitch,” Bucky says, and Loki whirls around in surprise, “catch.”

He slams Loki in the stomach with the hammer, but the handle slips from his hands, leaving him to watch both Loki and Mjolnir sail across the air and hit the wall of the closest building. Loki falls onto the ground, the hammer on his stomach, but to Bucky’s surprise he doesn’t get up, simply squirming in place.

Maybe there was something up with the car that was practically wrapped around the hammer, after all.

“Listen,” Bucky says as he slowly walks towards Loki. “You fucked with the wrong guy. I will give you ten seconds to reverse whatever the hell you did to my husband before I let the whole world know that Thor once made you watch _Mamma Mia_ with him. He told us all about it.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Loki hisses, squirming a little more.

“Oh yes,” Bucky says, leaning closer. “And I know that you _loved_ it.” Then, as an afterthought, he adds, “I might cut your fingers off, too. I'm pretty good with a scalpel. Or add you on mailing lists you can’t unsubscribe from.”

“Bucky!” Thor screeches to a halt next to them, looking openly impressed. “You hefted Mjolnir!”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t that hard.” He leans a little on the handle, putting pressure on it, and Loki makes a funny, winded noise. “So? Steve, reverse, chop chop. I have a date with his dick as soon as we’re done here.”

Loki grits his teeth, but points a finger towards Steve who’s running to them, and murmurs something. He could really make some cash as a Southern gothic Instagram model, if he washed his hair a little more often. Steve stumbles and nearly falls on his face, blinks a little, shakes his head, and then seems to realize where he is.

“Bucky?” Steve asks, squinting down at Bucky’s handbag and then at the three of them. “Is something wrong? You only use the Mermazing purse when you’re mad and want new sheet masks.”

“Halle-fucking-luja,” Bucky says, so happy he could cry a little. “Thor, take him somewhere before I actually kill him out of relief.”

“Sure thing!” Thor beams at him, grabs the hammer and Loki, and in a blink of an eye they’re gone, hopefully to beat each other up somewhere else. Bucky’s kind of sure that they both enjoy it way more than normal people should; their kink isn’t his kink and that’s fine, as long as they leave others out of it.

“Bucky,” Steve repeats, a little frantic now. He has unzipped the purse and is rifling through the contents, looking panicked. “There are _four_ masks in here. You usually get just two even when I've been dumb as fuck.” He looks up at Bucky, eyes big and horrified and so fucking blue. “Sweetheart, _what did I do?”_

Unexpectedly, Bucky actually does sniffle, the stress emptying out of him like a leaking balloon. It's just four more steps until he has his arms around Steve's neck and he's pushing his wet eyes against Steve's suit, getting hugged so tight that his ribs creak.

“Nothing,” he gets out, muffled by Steve's shoulder. “It wasn't your fault. But you need to come back to Innisfree with me, they have a face mask bar and this fucking mess interrupted me.”

Steve pulls back just far enough to get to Bucky's mouth. “Of course, baby,” he says softly between kisses. “Anything.”

“Are we actively ignoring the fact that Barnes can lift Thor’s hammer,” Tony's tinny voice says in Steve's earpiece. Steve twists his arm to turn the comm off without letting go of Bucky, pulls out the earpiece, and goes back to kissing him.

*

To the cashier's credit, she doesn't bat an eye when Captain America - in full gear and carrying a scaly mermaid purse, holding his still-sniffling-and-mad-about-it partner under his arm - comes in and buys the entire selection of the face mask bar. She even lets Steve use Bucky's frequent customer card, and gives them both hand lotion samples that smell like peaches.

*

“I'm so fucking sorry, Buck,” Steve says a lot later, when they're sweaty and tangled together in the dark, his stupid, amazing dick still hard inside Bucky even after two orgasms. “You went through the wringer because of me.”

“Just please never fucking do it again,” Bucky mumbles against his collarbone. “In sickness and health, huh?”

Steve kisses the crown of his head. “Still,” he says. “Do you think you could take a couple of days off from work? So that I can make it up to you, you feel thin.” He drops another kiss in Bucky’s hair and strokes a broad, warm hand over Bucky’s back. “And to be honest, doll, I don’t really want to let your dumb face and pretty ass out of my bed for a few days.”

“Your spunk isn’t gonna actually fatten me up, you know,” Bucky says, curving contently under the touch.

“What?” Steve asks, faking surprise and outrage, but a badly hidden smile in his voice. “I heard my spunk is magic.”

“Magic for my skin and hair, not actually nutritious,” Bucky says, drawing an idle spiral around Steve's nipple with his finger. “They gave me four days off yesterday, I can call in sick after that.”

“Perfect,” Steve says and dips down to kiss him on the mouth. “I'll mark next three days down for naps, takeout, and shagging.”

“Please never fucking _ever_ say shagging again,” Bucky complains even as he accepts both the kiss and the battle plan.

“Thor says shagging,” Steve protests. “I think it's a fun word.”

“Thor sounds like a fucking Aussie, don't take any vocabulary tips from him, ” Bucky says. “For all we know, he has a space kangaroo at home.”

“I think that's just Loki, mate,” Steve says in the most terrible Australian accent Bucky has ever heard, and they both start to snicker.

When they calm down, Bucky rolls them over so he ends up on top, sitting up on Steve's dick. “I love you,” he says, “but if you ever wake me up with the fucking rolling pin again, I'm following Mom's advice and shooting you into the sun. I heard NASA is sending a new probe next month.”

“If I ever do that again, I promise to strap myself to that damn probe,” Steve says seriously, framing Bucky's hips with his hands. “Hell, I should probably do that anyway for hurting you.”

“Not before you've made it up to me,” Bucky says and circles his hips. “I can go again.”

“You're a menace, Sporty Spice,” Steve says fondly, sitting up and wrapping his tree trunk arms around Bucky, “I love you like crazy.”

“You're plenty crazy without me,” Bucky says and gives him a kiss. “But I love you anyway. Come on, honey, show me how sorry you are.”

Steve laughs, flips them again, and proceeds to do exactly that.

*

“Jesus Christ,” Wanda says when she, Bruce, and Vision get back from their five-week India trip and hear about the mess. “Did none of you dumbasses even think to _call me?”_

She has an excellent point.

*****

**Author's Note:**

> My tunglr dot com is [here](http://rohkeutta.tumblr.com).


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